第161回：Toy Samurai

It’s no secret that Odacchi loves movies and that cinema has influenced ONE PIECE in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. The world-famous cinema treasure ‘Seven Samurai’ is the latter rather than the former. The film ‘Seven Samurai’ presents us with an ensemble cast of colorful leads, but only get to spend so much time with each of them. ONE PIECE is the answer to the question, “What if we knew more about each of the samurai?”

However, ONE PIECE is not a samurai story (although the same influences course through its veins) and therefore there are certain inherent aspects of so-called ‘samurai spirit’ that Odacchi cannot express through the Strawhat crew due to the nature of his light-hearted shonen manga tale.

Enter, The Akazaya Nine.

In this chapter we experienced Ashura’s self-sacrifice which may indeed be a permanent death. Obviously Odacchi cannot kill the Strawhats (though he does put them through the wringer!) but all bets are off when it comes to these noble and devoted samurai.

Watch for each of the samurai to face off against opponents one by one, *just* like the Strawhats normally do! Will all of them make it out alive? I hope so… But Kaido’s crew isn’t going to make that easy for them.

And yet… Even if Ashura’s sacrifice or future sacrifices from the Akazaya Nine have permanent results… I dare say I don’t think it’s the last we’ll see of them before this arc is over...

And just like that, Orochi is down! But wait… Hold on a tick! Let’s take a closer look at this…

This is our clearest shot of the scene and it appears that *five* cut necks are visible and *five* heads are confirmed cut with the bottom left corner head *very likely cut* but no artistic confirmation. This means Orochi has at most two heads left but very likely, he’s down to his very last one.

Don’t count him out as a threat. He needed Fukurokuju to get off that battlefield safely but slinking around a palace is his jam. I don’t think this snake is out of the game yet and is potentially one of the most dangerous villains on account of his scheming.